Brightening spaces with unique, interactive art.
Artist’s Statement
I create experiences for people. Problem-solving drives my creative process. I research, experiment and prototype ideas combining sculpture, light, sound and motion with visitor interaction. My ideas are based on goals of healing, educating and problem-solving. I translate these goals into interactive art, where visitors play an active role in the life cycle of the work.
Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, Melissa Daubert created her first portfolio in 11th grade, earning her a scholarship to study at Columbus College Of Art & Design. Focusing primarily on 3D works, she received a BFA in Illustration. After graduation Daubert served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Africa where she taught metalworking in rural Zimbabwe. Darning a dress, Daubert inspired the first female students in the school's history to study metal fabrication.
In 1995 Daubert joined the team building the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, Ohio. A strong leader and visionary, she was responsible for the design and fabrication of numerous exhibits still part of the museum's permanent collection including Port Polymer, one of the museum's key areas for children.
In 2005 Daubert established Interactive Works of Art, a sole proprietorship through which she creates work locally, regionally and nationally for museums, hospitals, theaters, galleries, public spaces, private institutions and individual collections.
Her work, sought after by places of educating and healing, can be found at places like The Gathering Place (Beachwood, Ohio), Phoenix Center (Elyria, Ohio), Strong National Museum of Play (Rochester, New York), Health Works! Kids' Museum (South Bend, Indiana), Arkansas Museum of Science (Little Rock, Arkansas), Akron Museum of Art, Akron Children's Hospital (Akron, Ohio) and Playhouse Square (Cleveland, Ohio).
Daubert has been a featured artist at Cleveland's Ingenuity Festival of Art & Technology and currently serves on the board for the Ingenuity Festival as well as the COSE Arts Network, She is a Seth Rosenberg Award recipient, a COSE Arts Business and Innovation Awards finalist and a National Arts Program Award recipient. Looking to the future, she leads art education programs for inner-city youth, partnering with community-based organizations across northeast Ohio.
OM
Premiering May 6th, 2010 at the International Festival - Playhouse Square
"It is said that when the entire world sings with one voice, the resulting vibrations will alter the earth and bring peace."
About OM
Combining art and audio technology, OM is an interactive art experience Inspired by global awareness, learning and healing. As visitors enter OM, they are met by the gazing eyes of 1,839 sculptural figures standing on seven continents around the world. One sculpture per million children represents the entire world's population of children under age 15.* As visitors move through the installation, the voices of children on each continent begin singing OM. As more continents join in, a fuller more harmonious sound Is created.
to learn more about OM click here
Family Walk
Akron Children's Hospital - Akron, OH
"Melissa's sculpture speaks powerfully of the healing that comes from nature and togetherness."
Dr. Sarah Friebert
Director
Haslinger Family Pediatric Palliative Care Center at Children's Hospital
About this piece
Throughout history animals have played important symbolic rotes in many different cultures. They have been seen as a source of power, spirit guardians and a source of healing.
Green is the color of nature. It stands for growth and the desire to expand and increase. It is the vibration of relationships and of growing. Relationships requiring balance between one's own needs and the needs of another person.
Family Walk was created to promote healing in patients and families at Akron Children's Hospital. Family Walk is a spiritual journey of love and compassion for those who are dearest to us.
Cat Walk
Partnering with St Clair Superior Development, Ingenuity Festival and
Goodrich Gannett Community Center
"After working with Melissa for three years to offer inner city youth in the St Clair Superior community a quality and arts culture education series, I have learned to expect nothing but the best."
"Our organization also commissioned Melissa to design and coordinate a permanent public art piece entitled 'Windows' that is on display in one of our community parks. Not only was this project executed perfectly, the finished piece was even more and impressive than we had ever anticipated. Melissa Daubert sets the standard for quality, thought provoking and thorough design work."
Rebecca Britton
Project Manager
St Clair Superior Development Corporation
The Year of the Tiger Arts and Culture class series was held at Goodrich Gannett Neighborhood Center's summer camp. For five weeks, 27 campers explored the cultural history, habitat and physics of the South Chinese Tiger, a critically endangered species.
Artist Melissa Daubert led the five-week curriculum integrating art, science and history. Students delved Into the legacy of tigers as symbols and characters in Chinese Art and, during a special guest lecture, learned about the physics of large cats from Brooks Altemus of the Great Lakes Science Center.
Student sculptures were then integrated Into an interactive kinetic art Installation called Cat Walk, exhibited at Cleveland's Ingenuity Festival of Art and Technology.
tornado
ZYGOTE PRESS - CLEVELAND, OHIO
About this piece
The Tornado was created after finding a roll of old fencing when I was walking my dog one day. The coil of rusty wire was already packed with yard debris perfect for a tornado, so I hooked it up to Milo and he dragged the roll home.
When visitors crank the handle below, the earth turns one direction while the tornado turns the other, creating a delicate network of shadows that come In and out of focus in the back ground.
Urban Trotter
INGENUITY FESTIVAL OF ART AND TECHNOLOGY - CLEVELAND, OHIO
"The whimsical nature of Melissa's art draws people in. It appeals to children and the child in every adult who come-in-contact with it."
"In her time at the Great Lakes Science Center, she set much of the theme and feel of the institution with her creations. This is in her past, but I still stand quietly in the background at the museum and watch people read her words out loud and take great delight in the touch and movement that define and characterize her work."
Brooks Altemus
Exhibits Department
Great Lakes Science Center
As a featured artist at the Ingenuity Festival of Art and Technology, I created Urban Trotter, a kinetic, interactive sculpture resembling a life-size walking horse and rider. The rider, a monkey wearing cowboy boots and bearing false teeth stands on top of the horse. Festival-goers are needed to make the sculpture come alive. With help of an articulated steering system, visitors push the piece, navigating horse and rider throughout festival grounds. The horse's legs, rigged atop cams, simulate walking, while head and tail bob up and down. As Urban Trotter travels down alleys and around city corners, horse-related audio sounds play and are transmitted to wireless speakers along the course, creating "audio/visual events" for bystanders as the horse rolls by.
circus of shadows
INGENUITY FESTIVAL - CLEVELAND, OHIO
"Melissa Daubert, one of NE Ohio's most compelling visual artists, captured Ingenuity Festival with her interactive exhibit 'Circus of Shadows", a work that transformed an otherwise decrepit storefront into a compressed wonderland of whimsy that showcased shadowy tightropes, improbable lizards and snakes and fanciful interactive contraptions. Her work is a consummation of human touch, technology and a delightful sense of the fantastic."
James Levin
Executive Director
Ingenuity Festival
Honored as a featured artist at the 2007 Ingenuity Festival, I received a grant to create an interactive art installation, Combining motion and light I created Circus Of Shadows, an interactive experience where visitors push, pull, swing, crank and ride kinetic sculpture bringing amazing, morphing shadows to life in an unforgettable performance of light.
Mosaic for 1000 Drums
INGENUITY FESTIVAL - CLEVELAND, OHIO
"As an artist and expert craftsperson, Melissa able to crystallize a vision and make manifest a beautiful and meaningful artifact using limited resources under a tight deadline."
Grant Marquit
Producer - Opening Ceremony
Ingenuity Festival 2006
I was asked to create a symbol for Symphony for 1,000 Drums. the opening ceremony for Ingenuity Festival 2006. 1,000 found objects including tiles, glass, ceramics and stone were collected to create this mosaic. Each piece symbolizes a drummer creating unity and organization from a collection of found objects.
meditaion park
DETROIT SHOREWAY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT - CLEVELAND, OHIO
"The Detroit Shoreway community owes a tremendous amount of gratitude to Melissa for breathing new life into a vacant lot. Melissa worked with the neighborhood, taking a vague idea for a signature green space to the design and creation of the West Clinton Labyrinth. Her artistic talent and project management skits were unmistakable during the entire process. West Clinton Park is row a cherished neighborhood asset."
Nelson Beckford
Safety Coordinator
Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization
Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization came to with the idea of developing an empty lot in the neighborhood. Working with the West Clinton Block Club. we developed the lot into a signature green space. A Peace Vigil was held at the labyrinth with over 300 residents walking its labyrinth. This community space was honored as a meditation and memorial park celebrating the lives of two slain neighborhood artists.
Port Polymer
GREAT LAKES SCIENCE CENTER -- CLEVELAND, OHIO
"There is a perceptive wit which inspires Melissa Daubert's work. Millions of children and adults from all over the world have been captivated by her exhibits at the Great Lakes Science Center."
"These exhibits encourage wonder and joy to be felt in the learning experience."
Pauline Fong-Martinez
Non-Profit Consultant, San Francisco, California
former Executive Vice President, Great Lakes Science Center
"Melissa Daubert was a unique asset to us. Her creativity, imagination, and artistic talent has been an inspiration. She is a hard working, dedicated and professional artist. The Science Center's very popular Polymer Fun House area for young children and their families would not be the sane without Melissa's "hands-on" artistic work, and her "hands-on" exhibits. Her murals at the Science Center's lower level entrance are outstanding."
Richard F. Coyne
President Emeritus
Great Lakes Science Center
The Great Lakes Science Center wanted to further expand the already existing Polymer Fun House onto an outdoor exhibit dock directly adjacent to Lake Erie. Given our proximity to the lake, water play was chosen as an appropriate medium for kids K-7 to learn about physics. Because of technical challenges in the space, all of the components in this exhibit area were designed to be movable and custom built to fit a non-level surface. The Polymer II built primarily of recycled lumber was built on location and with the same safety standards of today's modern playgrounds. Topics covered in this exhibit area include gravity, balance, levers, water pressure, cause and effect, sound and resonance, team work and pretend play.
the reading tree
MAPLE VALLEY PUBLIC LIBRARY - AKRON, OHIO
"Melissa Daubert's art is delightful. Her animated and whimsical work shares in the joy of creativity and life itself."
"As Executive Director of Art House, I have had the opportunity to work with this strong woman sculptor, witnessing her enthusiasm for teaching, her keen awareness of individual student's needs and her professional level of interaction with children and their parents. It is a pleasure to work with such a dedicated end well organized artist."Sheryl L. Hoffman
Executive Director
Art House, Inc.
"Melissa has found great balance between creating the imaginative interactive worlds of her sculpture and being a professional and driven artist."
Abby Maier
Arts Network Leader
COSE
Braun & Steidl Architects asked me to create an inviting and engaging reading area for children and their families. I created The Reading Tree, a magical world with windows to a hidden literary insect community.
Tri-Unicyclistic Movement
Honorable Mention
National Arts Program - Cleveland
Honorable Mention
Tremont's 3rd Annual Juried Art Show
"Melissa connects us to the joy that is present in ourselves and our lives. Her work reminds us to be 'in the moment' of our experience and rot to take simple daily joys for granted. Her artwork reflects the simple delight of just being, just experiencing."
Pauline Fong-Martinez
Non-Profit Consultant, San Francisco, California
former Executive Vice President, Great Lakes Science Center
I was inspired by an old bicycle and piano that were given to me by a friend. I wanted to create a kinetic, interactive experience that included recycled parts from both the bicycle and piano, bringing unexpected new life to everyday objects found in my studio.
baby new year jam!
FIRST NIGHT AKRON - AKRON ART MUSEUM - AKRON, OHIO
"It was quite remarkable to see an environment transform into a magical child-like moment, What is more remarkable is that this was rot created by visual aesthetics, but by the enchanting musical environment created as we interacted with the place."
"The magic and power of the piece is not complete until people engage in the work and allow themselves for a moment to be a child again."Travis Pollert
Video Artist
Baby New Year Jam! was created for First Night Akron, an annual family friendly New Years Eve celebration in downtown Akron. This interactive, kinetic, sound sculpture was inspired by people of all ages coming together to celebrate the NEW. In Baby New Year Jam! visitors create music together by manipulating a series Of mechanical systems that control a litter of 13 babies playing recorders, bar chimes, a bird whistle, foghorn and thunder tube!
listening man
THE GATHERING PLACE - BEACHWOOD. OHIO
"Melissa has created a sculpture in our healing garden that resonates with adults and children who are touched by cancer. Listening Man is both whimsical and therapeutic in nature and we are thrilled with Melissa's creative work."
Eileen Saffran, LISW
Executive Director
The Gathering Place
"This wonderful fellow invites children to sit with him, speak their secrets to him and be comforted by his jeweled welcoming heart. He is a big part of the reason one 7-year old said, with arms held wide open, "This garden is the best place in the world!"
"When children must deal with cancer, more than anything, they need someone to listen. In our garden now have Listening Man, an amazing sculpture created by Melissa Daubert."
Kathleen McCue, MA, LSW, CCLS
Director, Children's Programs
The Gathering Place
"The man up on the hill makes me feel safe like he's watching over me and taking care of me. I feel safe here."
Teenage boy touched by cancer
The Gathering Place asked me to create a piece of artwork that would help people dealing with cancer. My interactive installation had to blend into an existing healing garden and was designed to be used alone or with a facilitator. Staff were to incorporate the piece into their therapy program. Listening Man was created as a way for children to talk about their feelings without being confronted directly. His heart opens up to a special place for exploration and seeing beauty within.
dog in harness
SOLO EXHIBIT - CLEVELAND, OHIO
"Melissa's work is visually captivating and given the hands-on nature of it, flat out fun!"
Dan Herak
Attorney
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
"Her enchanting, irresistible creatures displayed hanging from cables and pulleys allowed the viewers to move the little critters and send them on a ride. Not only for me, but many other visitors as well, it became a serious problem to make a choice, as to which one to take home."
Lisa K. Lock
Dancer/Choreographer
Dog in harness belongs to a series of 17 kinetic, coir sculptures created for a site specific installation at Studio 11 in Tremont's Lemko Hall. In this series, visitors interact with the sculptures, rearranging them, making monkeys spin, rats rappel, spiders bounce and moving cables on pulley systems with lions, doggies and seahorses attached. This series was created for my first solo show and demonstrates the concept of cause and effect. Visitor interaction causes unanticipated results bringing surprise, change end a constant fluctuation in energy levels at the gallery.
What I See When I Close My Eyes
PENNY CHASTAIN - ST LOUIS. MO
"MeIissa was a joy to work with. Her ability to create emotion through her is artwork is beyond amazing. It was as if she read my mind as to what I visualized for my book. She truly brought my words to life. Working with her was a wonderful experience I would repeat without question."
Penny Chastain
Author
What I See When I Close My Eyes
What I See When I My Eyes is a storybook for children and parents dealing with chronic illness. I was asked to bring the writing of St. Louis-based author Penny Chastain to life. This book is dedicated to her daughter, Abigail, the inspiration for the story's heroine. For more information about the book, go to: www.dreamswishesandhopes.com
mr. mister
ARTS COLLINWOOD - CLEVELAND, OHIO
"Melissa is that rare combination of creative spirit and business acumen. She has a unique understanding of how her work exists in context, of the perceptions sensibilities of her viewers. Her pieces engage and invite in special ways. Above all, she is a joy to work with."
Sarah Gyorki
Director
Arts Collinwood
Arts Collinwood is a grass roots organization that asked me to create a signature piece for their annual summer arts festival. Working with a limited budget, I designed Mr. Mister. This neighborhood installation lets kids explore balance and momentum while having fun and cooling off.